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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 




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" upright against God" 

A SKETCH 
OF THE EARLY LIFE OF 

JOSEPH HARDY NEESIMA 



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BY ^ 




PHEBE FULLER McKEEN 



Author of Thornton Hall, Theodora, and Little 
Mother and Her Christmas 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

PHILENA McKEEN 



BOSTON 

D LOTHROP COMPANY 

WASHINGTON STREET OPPOSITE BROMFIELD 







Copyright, 1890, 

BY 

D. LoTHROP Company. 



Presswork by Berwick & Smith, Boston. 




INTRODUCTION. 

IHEN Joseph Neesima came, a 
stranger, to Andover in 1866, 
he attended — with the family 
where he had a pleasant home — the 
South Church, and there connected him- 
self with a Sabbath School class of young 
men, taught by my sister. Miss Phebe 
Fuller McKeen. 

This was the beginning of an intimate 
acquaintance. Mr. Neesima became our 
frequent and welcome visitor, and we 
were deeply interested in the snatches, 
thus incidentally caught, of his singular 
experience. 

At my sister's request, he related to her, 
7 



INTRODUCTION, 



at that time, the story of his life, which 
she immediately wrote out, that it might 
be on record, and largely in the charm of 
his own language. It could not have been 
published at that time without peril to 
interests political and social which were 
of great value both to himself and his 
family, and to his native land. 

In the quickened feeling which the 
lamented death of Mr. Neesima excites, 
frequent requests have been made for the 
publication of this manuscript, the exist- 
ence of which became known to a large 
circle. Friends of my sister will read it, 
longing 

" for the touch of a vanished hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still." 

This narrative will bring a crumb of 
comfort, as, weak in faith and sick at 



INTR on UCTION, 



heart, we survey the heathen world ; for by 
that Light which lighteth every man that 
Cometh into the world, without the Word, 
or the voice of the preacher, one man re- 
nounced idolatry. With his first knowl- 
edge that, " in the beginning, God created 
the heaven and the earth," he gave his 
allegiance to his Creator. He had " the 
feelings of trust and reliance on God,'' 
which belong to sonship, long before he 
comprehended the mission of Christ as a 
Saviour. For months he had been in spir- 
itual harmony with the Father without 
prayer, or being aware that he might pray, 
for he had not yet heard the wonderful 
announcement, '' If ye shall ask anything 
of the Father, he will give it you in my 
name." Later, as he became acquainted 
with the gospels, he was deeply affected 



I o INTR on UCTION. 

by the mediatorial office of Christ. Be- 
fore me is his autograph card, upon the 
back of which, in his handwriting in 
Japanese characters, is a text which he 
said had been the central power in his 
Christian life. It was this : " For God so 
loved the world, that he gave his only be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
Him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life." 

My sister's narrative closes with a peti- 
tion which infolds a prophecy : the prayer 
has been answered, and the prophecy is 
remarkably fulfilled. 

" There's not a craving in the mind 

Thou dost not meet and still ; 
There's not a wish the heart can have 

Which Thou dost not fulfill." 

Under the kind patronage of Mr. and 
Mrs. Alpheus Hardy, his " American 



INTR OD UCTION, 1 1 

father and mother," Joseph Neesima went 
from Phillips Academy to Amherst Col- 
lege, and subsequently returned to An- 
dover Theological Seminary, to prepare 
himself to preach the gospel to his people. 
Throughout his whole course of study, he 
was faithful, earnest and successful ; al- 
though his environments were foreign, 
he easily distinguished himself among his 
American fellow students, for his heart 
was burning for his people, and he longed, 
as he said, " to be able to bring a light 
into the darkness/' 

Through a wonder-working Providence, 
as the time drew near when, having com- 
pleted his studies, Mr. Neesima would be 
ready to return home, the Japanese Em- 
bassy came to this country, and Mr. Mori 
found in him a countryman eminently 



12 INTRODUCTION, 

qualified to serve him as translator and 
aid. Together, in the interests of Japan, 
they visited the grand institutions of the 
United States, Great Britain, and the Con- 
tinent, and, meanwhile, experienced mutu- 
ally a growing respect and cordiality which 
threw a golden bridge over the chasm 
which lay between the self-exile and his 
home ; furthermore, his connection wdth 
the Embassy gave him an advantageous 
introduction to his Government and her 
greatest statesmen. 

It was his constant desire to found a 
school which should be a blessing to his 
country. He began with a half-dozen 
boys in a private house; at his death his 
Doshisha covers a group of schools where 
nearly a thousand students are taught in 
the preparatory, the collegiate, and the 



1* 





INTR on UCTION. 13 

theological departments. There is also a 
training school for nurses, and special pro- 
vision is made for the general education 
of young women as well as for young 
men in the Doshisha — the "One Purpose 
Society." 

Such was Mr. Neesima's hold upon the 
confidence and affection of his people, 
that they made generous response to his 
appeals for help in the support of his 
Christian institution, which is now pro- 
vided with several fine buildings. 

He lived to welcome his parents and 
family into the household of faith, to en- 
joy a happy home of his own, where his 
tenderest sentiments and noblest ambi- 
tions were shared by his cultivated, Chris- 
tian wife, to see his beloved Doshisha a 
remarkable success, and his country trans- 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

formed by great moral, social and political 
changes. He was adored by his pupils, 
beloved by the missionaries associated 
with him, trusted by his government, hon- 
ored by his Alma Mater with her highest 
academic degree, and held in affectionate 
remembrance by the multitude of his 
friends in America. 

He died January 23, 1890, at Oiso, a 
health resort upon the coast; his remains 
reached Kyoto by the midnight train, and 
were received by hundreds of mourning 
students from the Doshisha, who lovingly 
bore them, with their own hands, to his 
home, two miles away. 

On the succeeding Sabbath, memorial 
services were held both in Japanese and 
English, and warm tributes to his life and 
work were offered; more than three thou- 



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INTRODUCTION. 15 

sand were present at his obsequies and a 
funeral cortege reaching more than a 
mile in length followed his body to its 
resting-place. The students were again 
his bearers, and that as many as possible 
might share the coveted privilege of this 
last ministry to him whom they loved, the 
office was chansfed at short intervals. 

His grave was made in the college 
burying-ground on a hillside overlooking 
the city and the surrounding plain. Stu- 
dents visit it as a shrine, and stimulate 
their spiritual life by his memory, and the 
hope that his mantle may fall upon them. 

Mr. Neesima had been constantly true 
to his immediate conviction upon learning 
of God, '' I belong to Heavenly Father, 
therefore I must believe Him and I must 
run in his way.'' The Father abundantly 



i6 INTRODUCTION. 

answered his earliest prayer: " Please let 
me reach my great aim.'' 

It will be a rich contribution to biogra- 
phy and literature when Professor Arthur 
Sherburne Hardy shall publish his prom- 
ised " Life of Dr. Joseph Hardy Neesima.'' 
Seldom has a biographer had so attractive 
a theme ; and seldom is a theme treated 
by one so happily qualified by familiar ac- 
quaintance and warm personal friendship, 
by a feeling for perspective and values in 
portraiture, and by an obedient pen. 

This brief sketch, written more than 
twenty years ago, must be read in the 
thought that it is a mere fragment; a frag- 
ment of a time when comparatively little 
was known of the life, religion, art and in- 
stitutions of Japan, and long before Mr. 
Neesima achieved success as a student, a 



INTRODUCTION, 17 

powerful speaker, a diplomatist, a man of 
extraordinary executive ability, and mag- 
netism to draw about him a large circle of 
friends. It will be read with all the more 
interest because it is a sketch made at the 
time when God's purposes respecting him 
were all unknown, and those who were in- 
terested w^ere praying that he might do 
what now they thank God for his having 
been permitted to accomplish. It is the 
story of the beginnings of a life which 
became ample and fruitful and conspicu- 
ous — worthy of an elaborate portrayal 
by a master hand. 

P. McK. 

Abbot Academy, Andover, Mass., 1890. 



THE STORY OF NEESIMA. 



THE STORY OF NEESIMA. 




3ESS than two years ago a young 
foreigner landed on our shores 
with a personal history so sin- 
gular and suggestive that it deserves to 
be recorded. It shall be given, as far as 
is possible, in his own fresh English. 

It was in the ancient city of Jeddo that 
Neesima first opened his eyes ; and an 
odd-looking town he must have thought 
it, if babies were not such unbiased ob- 
servers : black houses, *paper front doors, 
and ladies carried along the streets in bas- 
kets. Strange, as the old woman said, 



22 THE STORY OF NEESIMA, 

that folks can live so far off! Stranger 
still, what queer ways they do fall into, 
living there ! 

The family of Neesima belonged to the 
establishment of a Japanese prince, his 
grandfather being "officer of whole the 
prince's servants,'' and his father a sort 
of scribe or secretary to the same grandee. 
Still they lived by themselves in one of 
the houses connected with the palace. 
Funereal as all these buildings were ex- 
ternally, Neesima's home, at least, must 
have had a cheerful look inside, especially 
the family sitting-room ; its papered walls 
hung with quaint pictures, and lined with 
wardrobes full of oriental garments — 
the floor hidden under heavy matting and 
trodden with unsandalled feet — the broad 
low window with its sliding sash of oiled 




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THE STOR Y OF NEE SI MA. 23 

paper, half hidden in plants with their 
strange, rich blossoms — the bed of coals 
glowing in a large open brasier — the 
table, knee-high, in the middle of the 
room, strewn with curious writing uten- 
sils and corpulent little volumes in Jap- 
anese and Chinese with their silky leaves 
and elaborate letters — the sliding door of 
paper with the family cat, very likely, in 
the act of breaking through it. This was 
the room where most of Neesima's child- 
ish hours were spent. These little Japan- 
ese have a great advantage over our " wee 
bit toddlin' things,'' in the fact that grown 
people all sit on the floor, so that life is 
carried on at a level with their curious 
eyes. 

As night falls, a strange transformation 
comes over this pleasant living-room. It 



24 THE STOR V OF NEESIMA, 

is divided by screens into as many bed- 
rooms as are needed, mattresses are laid 
down, and each member of the family re- 
tires behind his screen, wraps the drap- 
ery of his couch about him in the shape 
of as many quilted wrappers as the weather 
demands, and lies down to pleasant dreams 
on a wooden pillow with a little cushion 
over it. 

One feature of the sitting-room we have 
overlooked, which would be not only new, 
but sad to us. On a shelf against the 
wall stands a grim array of hideous gods, 
and among them are tablets inscribed with 
the names of dead ancestors. To all these 
the little Neesima was early taught by his 
father to pay homage, offering them rice 
and tea on a salver, and repeating forms 
of adoration. Before many years, how- 



THE STORY OF NEE SIM A, 25 

ever, the sturdy good sense of the boy 
protested against this absurd religion. 
For aught he knew, the whole world wor- 
shiped idols as devoutly as his father did ; 
he had never heard of any other God, but 
he could see for himself that these were 
"only whittled out"; that they never 
touched the food and drinks he offered 
them, and that the oblation of wine set 
before them finally went down his father's 
throat ; he was quite sure that he was bet- 
ter able to take care of himself than they 
were to take care of him, and from the 
time he was fifteen or sixteen years old, 
he could not be persuaded to pay the least 
respect to these helpless and senseless 
Penates. 

So the boy grew up, sadly irreligious in 
his father's eyes, but fond of the saddle 



26 THE STORY OF NEESIMA, 

and the sword, active, studious and useful. 
The father kept in his house a little school 
for boys and girls — be it observed that 
girls are thought worth teaching in the 
Tycoon's dominions — and here Neesima 
first learned to read and write, and then 
helped to teach the rest. About the time 
he was sixteen years old, just as he had 
conceived a new zeal for books and was 
going into the study of Chinese with great 
enthusiasm, his '' prince picked up him to 
write his daily book. Although it would 
not have been his desire, he was obliged 
to go up his office." 

The Japanese nabobs think literary em- 
ployments quite too laborious for royalty, 
and have most of their reading and writ- 
ing, like every other kind of work, done 
for them. So Neesima took his place 



THE STORY OF NEESIMA. 27 

among some twenty clerks in his prince's 
office, sitting on the carpet around their 
low tables, tracing intricate, picture-like 
characters, with camel's hair pencils in 
India ink, as deftly as we can handle a pen. 
Laws were to be copied, facts recorded and 
letters written, at the prince's direction. 
By the way, these people have the fashion 
of superscribing their epistles with the 
name of the writer as well as the receiver. 
Here the young scribe worked all day, 
and often far into the night, while shouts 
of revelry and the songs of dancing girls 
came from the banqueting hall of the pal- 
ace. Every alternate day, however, he ex- 
changed places with his father, and along 
with his " big sister " looked after the 
school at home. All the evenings at his 
disposal he gave to the study of Chinese. 



28 THE STOR V OF NEESIMA. 

But a new light dawned upon him which 
he shall describe in the rich simplicity of 
his own words : 

" A day my comrade sent me a atlas of 
United States which was written in China- 
letter by some American minister. I read 
it many times and I w^as wondered so 
much as my brain would melted out from 
my head because I liked it very much — 
picking out president, building free school, 
poor-house, house of correction, and ma- 
chine working and so forth. And I 
thought a governor of every country must 
be as President of United States, and 
murmured myself that O, governor of 
Japan ! why you keep down us as a dog 
or pig ? We are people of Japan ; if you 
govern us you must love us as your chil- 
dren. From that time I wished to learn 



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THE STORY OF NEE SIM A. 29 

American knowledge, but alas ! I could 
not get any teacher to learn it. Although 
I would not like to learn Holland, I was 
obliged to learn it, because many of my 
countrymen understood to read it." 

Even for this second-best knowledge, it 
was difficult for him to find time and op- 
portunity. Once when his prince had for 
the second time caught him running away 
from his office to go to his Dutch teacher, 
and had given him a flogging for it, he 
asked him, " Why you run out from here 
again } " 

'' Then I answered to him," says Neesi- 
ma, '' I wish to learn foreign knowledge 
because foreigners have got best knowl- 
edge, and I hope to understand it very 
quickly ; therefore, though I know I must 
stay here, reverence you low, my soul went 



so THE STORY OF NEESIMA. 

to my master's house to learn it, and my 
body was obliged to go thither too. Then 
he said to me very kindly that ' You can 
write Japan very well and you can earn 
enough with it. If you don't run away 
from here any more, I will give you more 
wages. With what reason will you like 
foreign knowledge .^ Perhaps it will mis- 
take yourself."' 

" I said to him sooner, ' Why will it mis- 
take myself? I guess every one must 
take some knowledge. If a man has not 
any knowledge, I will worth him as a dog 
or pig ! ' Then he laughed very loud 
about it and said me, ' You are stable 
boy!'" 

This was by no means the only time 
that the thirst for knowledge cost the boy 
both ridicule and blows. His family and ac- 



THE STORY OF NEE SIM A, 31 

quaintances, as well as his prince, thought 
him very foolish to be craving needless 
knowledge ; still he " never took care to 
them/' and held " his counsel very fast." 
Business grew upon his hands, however, 
so that no time was to be had for study, 
and this cost him " many musings in his 
head," and at last made him fairly sick 
with thwarted purposes and unsatisfied 
longings. After various efforts to cure 
him, his physician had the good sense to 
tell him, " Your sickness comes from your 
mind, therefore you must try to destroy 
your warm mind and must take walks for 
the healthness of your body, and it would 
be more better than many medicine." 

His prince gave him '* plenty times to 
feed his weakness," and his father gave 
him some money to "play himself," all 



32 THE STORY OF NEESIMA. 

which he devoted to the ardent study of 
Dutch and " a small Book of Nature " 
which fell into his hands and delio;hted 
him so much that it proved " more better 
to his sickness than doctor's medicine." 

So health came back, and with it came 
the busy days and studious nights. In his 
Book of Nature he met with some " rea- 
sonable accounts ''which he was unable to 
understand, as it is thought unnecessary 
in Japan for boys to study arithmetic 
unless they are destined for trade. It was 
not his way to go over or around, but 
through, and as Lincoln laid down his 
book at the word *' demonstration " and 
went through Euclid, this Japanese youth 
shut up his Natural History at the '' rea- 
sonable accounts " and went to an arith- 
metic school until he had mastered the 



THE STORY OF NEESIMA, 2,Z 

elementary principles of the science and 
could go through his book intelligently. 

But here come some reflections of the 
young patriot in his own words. 

'^ Some day I went to the seaside of 
Yeddo, hoping to see the view of the sea. 
I saw largest man-of-war of Dutch, laying 
there, and she seemed to me as a castle, or 
a battery, and I thought too that she 
would be strong enough to fight with ene- 
m.y. While I look upon her, one reflection 
came upon my head, that we must open 
navy, because the country is surrounded 
by water, and if foreigners fight to my 
country we must fight with them at sea. 
But I made other reflection too, that since 
foreigners trade, price of everything get 
high, the country get poorer than before, 
because the country don't understand to 



34 THE Sl^ORY OF NEESIMA. 

do trade with foreigners. Therefore we 
must go to foreign countries, we must 
know to do trade, and we must learn for- 
eign knowledge. But the Government's 
law neglected all my thoughts and I cried 
out myself: 

'' Why, Government ? Why not let us 
be free ? Why let us be as a bird in a 
cage or a rat within a bag? Nay, we 
must cast away such savage government. 
But alas ! such things would have been 
out my power ! " 

So the solitary revolutionist shut up 
the cries of liberty within his own burn- 
ing heart and patiently set to work in a 
government marine school whenever he 
could get away from his work, seeking in- 
formation that he might turn to account 
for his country in the future. 



THE STORY OF NEESIMA. 35 

He had just made a good beginning in 
navigation when night study injured his 
eyes, so that he was obliged to leave 
books entirely for a year and a half, 
''which would not come again in his life." 
He had hardly recovered from this trouble 
so as to resume his place in the prince's 
office when he was beset by measles, and 
his eyes, in consequence, " began to spoil 
again," so that he was forced ''to spend 
many times very vainly." 

When he did next use his eyes, how- 
ever, it was to some purpose. " A day 
I visited my friend and I found out small 
Holy Bible in his library that was written 
by some American minister, with China 
language, and had shown only the most 
remarkable events of it. I lend it from 
him and read it at night. I was afraid 



S6 THE STORY OF NEESIMA, 

the savage country's law which, if I read 
the Bible, Government will cross whole 
my family.'' 

There were, at that time, three crimes 
in Japan for which crucifixion was the 
penalty; the murder of a master by a ser- 
vant, a parent by his child, or the reading 
of the Bible ! 

This abridgment of the Bible contained 
little but the grand facts of creation and 
redemption, and these were entirely new 
to the earnest young soul that pored over 
its pages. It was indeed a Revelation to 
him. 

''I put down the book and look around 
me, saying that ' Who made me — my 
parents ? No ! my God. Who made my 
table — a carpenter ? No ! my God ; God 
let trees grow upon the earth. Although 



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THE STORY OF NEESIMA. 37 

the carpenter indeed made up this table it 
indeed came from trees.' Then I must 
be thankful to God ; I must believe him, 
and I must be upright against him," was 
the swift and just conclusion. 

So it was that without ever having seen 
one Christian believer, without one word 
of explanation from any human being, 
without the whole Bible even, this thought- 
ful, light-loving soul that had long scouted 
the gods of the heathen, recognized its 
eternal Father and fell at his feet in loving 
worship. Glorious old Revelation ! Let 
it steal away from the tortures of its cold 
inquisitors and show itself only to the 
simple, truth-thirsty soul, it is hailed as 
the yearned-for Guide and Deliverer! 

At once Neesima recognized, as it 
seems, his Maker's claim to love, trust 



38 THE STOR Y OF NEESJMA. 

and obedience, and began to yield them. 
It is a singular fact that it was more than 
a year before he learned that it is per- 
mitted to mortals to talk to this glorious 
Father as a man talketh with his friend. 
He " had the feeling," he says, *'the feel- 
ing of trust and reliance on God," but the 
sweet possibility of prayer was not known 
to him. 

From this time his " mind was fulfilled 
to read English Bible," and he burned to 
find some teacher or missionary who could 
instruct him and give him the whole word 
of God. 

His father was, naturally enough, dis- 
turbed by his boy's new notions, and cer- 
tain that he would get the whole family 
into trouble, and on asking permission of 
his prince and his parents to go to Hako- 



THE STORY OF NEESIMA. 39 

date, a port where he hoped to meet some 
Englishman or American, he got not only 
a refusal, but a flogging. Still his '^stable- 
ness did not destroy by their expostula- 
tions." He next applied to the brother- 
in-law of his prince, a noble higher in rank 
and authority than he, and got leave from 
him to go in one of his own vessels to 
Hakodate. Having this sanction neither 
his prince nor his father was at liberty to 
prevent his going. 

Not without pain, yet with a resolute 
heart, the young adventurer left the family 
in tears, and started on his search for 
truth, " no thinking that when money was 
gone how would he eat and dress himself," 
but only casting himself on the providence 
of God ! 

He had told his mother he thought he 



40 THE STOR V OF NEE SIM A. 

would be gone a year, but at Hakodate 
he was doomed to disappointment. He 
sought in vain for any missionary or 
teacher of English, Meanwhile his small 
funds melted away very fast, and he was 
obliged to look about him to feed the 
outer man as well as the inner. He was 
more successful here, falling in with a 
Russian priest of the Greek church, who 
was glad to secure his services as teacher 
of Japanese. But, foiled in his great de- 
sire, he began to meditate leaving the 
country altogether. This idea the priest 
did his best to discourage, assuring him 
that he would teach him all he needed to 
know. On the other hand, he was warmly 
encouraged to go by three or four of his 
countrymen, whose acquaintance he had 
made at his hotel. Indeed, Neesima says 



THE STORY OF NEESIMA, 41 

there is a strong inclination among the 
young men of Japan to visit foreign lands, 
which nothing but the severity of the 
Government, and the hostages given it in 
wife and children, holds in check. The 
more he saw of his native island the more 
indignant he became at the tyranny that 
oppressed it; he "felt injured," and he 
longed to be able to *' bring a light into 
the darkness." 

Still, it was a very serious question; if 
he left the country, death would be his 
only welcome back. To go, was to ad- 
venture himself, a penniless exile, with an 
unknown tongue, into a new, mysterious 
world, of which he only knew that truth 
was there ; more than all, it was to bring 
grief and fear, possibly danger, into the 
home he loved. " But one reflection," he 



42 THE STORY OF NEE SIM A. 

says, '' came upon my head, that although 
my parents fed me, I belong indeed to 
Heavenly Father. Therefore I must be- 
lieve him, and I must run in his way." 
Remember he had never yet seen a Chris- 
tian. '' Then I began to search some 
vessel to get out from the country.'' 

A kind helper in this undertaking was 
one of his new friends, a young Japanese 
in charge of an English store and under- 
standing the language well. He secured a 
passage for him in an American schooner 
bound for Shanghai. It was necessary to 
get away as secretly as possible. The 
eventful night came. The voyager met 
his three friends for the last time. The 
cup of rice wine was passed from lip to 
lip in pledge of friendship. They all 
wished they were going too, cheered him 



THE STORY OF NEE SIM A. 43 

on, and bade him good-by. One of 
them — the clerk — promised to have a 
boat waiting at the water's edge near his 
store, at twelve o clock, to take him to the 
schooner, though Neesima was as much 
in dread of compromising this faithful 
friend as of betraying himself. 

At midnight a whispered word of part- 
ing, hushed footsteps, the muffled dip of 
oars, and the true-hearted young patriot, 
who went to seek light and blessing for 
his country even more than himself, had 
stolen out from its shores like a culprit. 
This was on the eighteenth of July, 1864. 

After a disagreeable passage to China, 
and ten days of waiting in constant anxiety, 
lest by some treachery he should be spir- 
ited back to Japan, he had the happiness 
of finding an American vessel bound for 



44 THE STORY OF NEE SIM A. 

Boston. By means of a Japanese-English 
dictionary he succeeded in making the 
captain understand that he would be glad 
to do anything, and ask no other pay than 
to be taken to America, and " begged to 
him, if I get to America, please let me 
go to a school and let me take good 
education," 

So the kind-hearted Yankee captain 
took him as his own attendant, dressed 
him in Frank costume, gave him a Chris- 
tian name, and on the voyage taught him 
navigation and English. 

The voyage was a long and roundabout 
way to the goal of his most ardent wishes. 
The Wild Rover traded along the coast 
of China for eight months, before turning 
her prow towards the New World. While 
they lay in the harbor of Hong Kong, 



THE STOR V OF NEE SI MA. 45 

Neesima found the New Testament in 
Chinese ; he must have it, but how should 
he get it, since he had promised to ask for 
no money ? At last he joyfully bethought 
himself of a piece of property that he 
might exchange for it ; the young gentle- 
men of Yeddo wear two swords, a short 
and a long one; so our hero sold his ra- 
pier to the captain and became, for the 
first time, the rich possessor of a whole 
New Testament. 

At length sails were set for the West, 
and in four months from that time the land 
of promise dawned upon our wanderer. 
Even then it seemed as if he was to be 
baffled. Directly after coming into port 
at Boston, his protector, the captain, went 
to the Cape to see his friends, and for ten 
weeks Neesima was left to " rough and god- 



46 THE STOR V OF NEE SIM A, 

less men, who kept the ship/' doing hard, 
heavy work, such as he had never been 
accustomed to. Besides, everybody on 
the wharf frightened him. They told him 
" Nobody on the shore will relieve you, be- 
cause since the war the price of every- 
thing got high. Ah, you must go to sea 
again." ''I thought too," he says, *' that 
I must work pretty well for my eating and 
dressing, and I could not get in any school 
before I could earn any money to pay to 
a school. When such thoughts pressed 
my brain, I could not work very well ; I 
could not read book very cheerfully, and 
only looked around myself long time as a 
lunatic." 

One great discovery, however, he had 
already made. The captain had given 
him a little money to amuse himself with 



THE STORY OF NEE SIM A, 47 

on shore, and he had treated himself to a 
Robinson Crusoe, which he found at some 
bookstore on Washington Street, and 
Robinson Crusoe first taught him that he 
might pray ! His New Testament in a 
foreign language he had not yet entirely 
mastered. This shipwrecked Robinson 
Crusoe prayed in his distress ; why might 
not he ? So every night after he went to 
bed he " prayed to the God, ' Please don't 
cast me away into miserable condition : 
please let me reach my great aim/ " 

Ah, how little we know when we pray, 
how long our Father has been preparing 
to answer our prayer! That God who 
had turned the boy's heart from idols, 
who had inspired him to feel after Him, 
if haply he might find him, who had said 
unto him, " Get thee out of thy country 



48 THE SJ'ORY OF NEESIMA. 

and from thy kindred and from thy 
father's house, into the land which I will 
show thee," — He had not neglected, we 
may be sure, to prepare a place for him. 
He had brought the young wanderer 
across the seas in a ship belonging to one 
of His own children, straight to the hands 
of one whose joy it was to spend his 
strength and his wealth in the service of 
his beloved Lord. On learning from the 
captain the story of his protege, this 
Christian ship-owner gladly accepted the 
trust thus sent him from the other side of 
the world, and took upon himself at once 
the whole charge of the young stranger's 
support and education. 

" When I first heard these things from 
my captain," said Neesima, " I jumped 
for joy, my eyes was fulfilled with many 



THE STORY OF NEE SIM A. 49 

tears because I was very thankful to him, 
and I thought, too, God will not forsake 
me ! " 

By his patron, Hon. Alpheus Hardy 
of Boston, he was immediately put at 
Phillips Academy, Andover, where he 
has been now a little more than a year. 
" His desire is fulfilled ; he takes good 
education." In the crowd of young 
American students about him, he finds, 
as his teachers say, no superior in intel- 
lect. His mind has an indomitable pro- 
pensity for diving to the bottom. 

On the last Sabbath of 1866 Neesima 
was received as a brother beloved into the 
church of the First-born, and welcomed 
to the Table of the Lord, in the chapel 
of the Andover Seminary, It was a long 
time after he had begun to " be thank- 



50 THE STORY OF NEESIMA, 

ful to God, believe Him, and be upright 
against Him," that he comprehended the 
mission of Christ. He had not thought 
of himself as a sinner, but as he read on, 
and found out the high, pure morality and 
religion of the Bible, he condemned him- 
self, and, as a sinner, laid hold upon the 
Saviour. He had not known sin but by 
the law, yet it was a blessed law which 
brought a gospel with it. 

Such is the account prepared very soon 
after Neesima's arrival in this country, 
and chiefly in his own English, before it 
was run in the ordinary moulds of the 
more correct language which he now uses. 
Every particular of this story is strictly 
true. When permission was asked to pub- 
lish his history, he declined, saying he 
" was not worth it, and he did not like to 



THE STORY OF NEE SIM A, 51 

be made public." But upon the sugges- 
tion that, as a fresh proof of the power 
of the Bible and of God's beautiful provi- 
dence, it might be useful to others, he 
cheerfully consented, only stipulating that 
his real name and present place of resi- 
dence be withheld ; in fact this was a 
matter of prudence as well as of prefer- 
ence. Nothing could be more repugnant 
to him than to be made an object of in- 
different curiosity. From his school-fel- 
lows and teachers and the kind Christian 
family where he always boarded in An- 
dover, he is accustomed to receive unquali- 
fied respect and affection. Enough cannot 
be said of his character and ability, with- 
out wronging a modesty and simplicity of 
heart which are to be revered. 

It is still his great hope and purpose to 



52 THE STORY OF NEESIMA. 

do something for his countrymen. Al- 
though under a strict interpretation of 
Japanese law he would be liable to execu- 
tion if he should return to Japan, by the 
time he is ready for work he will have a 
right to claim, should he desire it, the 
protection of the American flag, and it 
may be hoped also that his Government 
will have made progress in liberal ideas. 
May God permit him to bestow on his 
beloved island the sacred treasures he has 
found in his world-wide quest ! 

And may God rouse in us a deeper 
sympathy for the noble souls that are 
pining in darkness for the light ! 

p. F. McK. 

Abbot Academy, Andover, Mass., 1867. 



2 




THE SEAL OF MR. NEESIMA'S FAMILY. 






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